


Avalanche

by LBibliophile



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Anger Management, Bingo Fill, Gen, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Star Spangled Bingo, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Steve Rogers and the 21st Century, Tony Stark Bingo 2019, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Touch-Starved, and he gets one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-03 21:57:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19473010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LBibliophile/pseuds/LBibliophile
Summary: Sometimes, all it takes is little things. A minor annoyance that leads to another and another and another. Until it all comes crashing down and you are helpless to stop it or escape.Waking up in a new century was hard, but Steve thought he was coping. (He wasn’t.)Written for:Star Spangled Bingo 2019 - 4:1 Huddling for warmthTony Stark Bingo 2019 - R2 Sharing body heat





	Avalanche

Steve wakes with a gasp. Warm air floods his lungs, sharp contrast to icy water.

It is a feeling he has become familiar with over the last few weeks. He’ll retreat to bed, mind dizzy and aching from trying to understand this new world. But sleep is not the refuge hoped for. Instead, it is a morass of nightmares.

_Friends, enemies, strangers; shot and bleeding and dying, or dissolving under beams of blue light._

_Bucky; reaching, falling, just a little too far to touch._

_Himself; crashing, drowning, freezing but never dying._

He hates reliving the memories, night after night, but it is almost worse when they are not nightmares. When he dreams instead of happy memories, or the future that could have been. Because then, the nightmare comes when he wakes.

Tonight was the worst of both options.

_He was back in the pub with the Howlies, drinking and laughing. There is the feeling that something is missing, but he doesn’t care. They are celebrating; the war is over!_

_He smiles as he sees Peggy approaching, her red dress vibrant in the dim lighting. But she is angry. How can they celebrate when Bucky is gone? (Bucky; how could he forget? —_ Cold, wind, reaching, Bucky! _) How can they celebrate when Steve is gone?_

_But he’s not dead! He’s right here. He tries to call out, to reach out towards her. But his voice is frozen, and his limbs are frozen, and he is helpless as the ice sinks sharp claws deeper and deeper, and he is cold, so cold…_

He wrenches his mind back to the present, a shudder running through him at the too-real memory of the sensation. There is no way that he is going back to sleep any time soon. He knows from experience that blankets are useless when the memories leave him frozen in his core like this. So instead, he unearths a hoodie to go with his sweatpants and drags himself to the kitchen. Maybe a cup of coffee will help him thaw.

Of course, tonight, that means trekking to the kitchen on the common floor. Normally he keeps coffee supplies in his own kitchen, but last night had been particularly bad, requiring three mugs before he managed to get his shivering under control. He’d meant to buy more today, but then he’d spent most of the day in meetings at SHIELD, and by the time he left, the wind was so cold that all he could think about was returning to the Tower as quickly as possible. It doesn’t matter that he knows the cold can’t harm him—has proof. For him, the consequences are worse than simply hypothermia or frostbite…

When he gets to the common-floor kitchen he discovers that his run of bad luck continues.

Each of the Avengers has their own preferred beverage—Bruce’s odd herbal teas; Natasha’s juice; Clint, Tony and himself with their different coffee blends—and the main kitchen stocks all of them. Usually. Because when fumbling fingers manage to open his coffee jar, he finds only a purple post-it-note inside.

> _Ran out of coffee so used yours. I’ll refill tomorrow.  
>  _>>——>

Sure enough, the tin Clint uses for his instant sludge is empty as well, but for a few grains clinging to the bottom. His fists clench. This is why they each have their own supply. So that when one of them wakes up from nightmares and needs the warmth and scent of a familiar brew, they don’t find someone else has gone and used it all!

Reining in his frustration, he turns to the remaining option; Tony’s coffee. Of course, Tony being Tony, it is all pre-stored in his fancy coffee machine with about 50 different settings.

Tony had shown them all how to use it—had been almost offended when they chose instead to stick to familiar routines—but Steve fully admits he wasn’t listening. By the time it got to ‘do this and this and select from this menu’ he’d given up. What’s wrong with using a saucepan? Or the electric kettles that everyone who isn’t Tony Stark uses now days? Even a percolator, if you want to be fancy? The answer, of course, comes back to the lack of coffee available to put with said boiled water. So figuring out Tony’s coffee maker it is.

First things first, coffee. He crosses his fingers as he checks the glass cannister built into the side of the machine. For once, luck is in his favour; it is still half full of grounds.

Next step, water. He leans around the back—bumping his head on the wall—to peer at the reservoir. Empty. Grasping hold of it, he tugs, trying to remember the right angle to slip it free. Nothing. He changes the angle and tries again. Nothing. He pulls harder. Nothing. He jiggles it. Nothing. He pulls _harder_ … a piece of plastic goes pinging across the kitchen as the container comes free, almost slamming into the wall.

Steve takes a deep breath and tries to loosen his clenched muscles. He’s ok, everything’s ok, and that bit of plastic probably wasn’t important anyway. Letting the breath out slowly, he turns to the sink to refill the reservoir.

He should have taken an extra minute. Adrenaline is still running through him, and he twists the handle too hard. The tap turns on with a blast, the water jet reflecting back to spray ice-cold drops all over his exposed hand. Reflexively, he drops the container in the sink, yanking his hand back to scrub it dry on his pants.

Then, he just stands and shudders for a moment, trying to keep control of his mind and body. His fingers were wet for mere seconds, but he can still feel it, every drop like a needle piercing his skin, the freezing numbness lurking at the edges of his thoughts.

Finally, the need for coffee—for warmth—gets him moving. Pushing down the shudders, the ice and shadows, he tries again. Carefully, gently, he reduces the flow from the tap and fills the reservoir. Carefully, gently, he returns the reservoir to the machine, slotting it into place. Carefully, gently, he activates the machine’s touch-screen interface. But careful and gentle do nothing to help the renewed shivers making his fingers tremble against the screen.

Because the coffee machine is just like everything else in this time,

_Beep. Beep. Beep. And find the ‘back’ button._

too loud and too fancy

_Beep. Beep. … (c’mon, press) beep. (No, wrong) find the ‘back’ button._

and why does everything have to be so _complicated_?

_Beep. … … (the button is right there, and he’s pressing it, or he’s trying to, but it just won’t work!)_

“What did the poor machine ever do to you?”

Steve hears Tony enter the kitchen but keeps glaring at what is now a twisted tangle of metal and plastic sitting on the bench, his fingers tingling with the healing of minor cuts.

“I just wanted some god-damn coffee.”

“Ha, so you can swear after all then, Cap. I mean, it’s coffee, so fair excuse, but…”

He tunes out Tony’s rambling, focussing instead on the pressure again building inside.

_Cap. Captain. Capsicle. Spangles. Grandpa. All variations on a theme._

He finally turns, cutting off his team-mate mid-sentence.

“I have a name, you know. Steve Rogers, ring a bell? I’m sure it’s mentioned _somewhere_ in the dozens of textbooks about me. Yet somehow, I can still count on one hand the number of times I’ve heard it since -” He trails off, anger fading as quickly as it rose, leaving aching emptiness behind.

_Since Peggy. Since Bucky._

And Tony’s expression is changing to something that might be panic, but it’s hard to tell because Tony’s face is all blurry, actually everything is blurry, and oh, that would be because he is crying, which would explain the panic since Tony doesn’t deal well with emotions, and Steve would stop it if he could, he wishes he could, but it’s too much, everything is broken inside and the tears are just leaking out…

Then suddenly, bands—arms—are clamping around him, holding him together.

He melts. There is a solid body pressed up against his front and strong arms wrapping around, pinning his arms to his sides. And they are warm, alive, enveloping. Heat gathers at each point of contact, sinking in to finally start thawing a part of him he hadn’t even realised was still frozen.

The arms tighten, and his mind goes blank. A fine trembling builds in his limbs; shivering, like that of a body that has been too long in the cold finally come into the warmth. He lets it run through him, sagging into his support.

“Oof. I guess you really needed that, didn’t you big guy? Glad I didn’t completely misjudge things, I would’ve hated to end up like that coffee machine. But this is apparently more effective than I expected. C’mon, let’s find you a chair before we both end up on the floor.”

Then he is shuffling backwards, and the arms are loosening slightly as he is guided down onto a chair. But that’s ok, because now there is a firm chest under his cheek, the soft cotton shirt soaking up the burning tears still leaking from his eyes. And he can hear the steady rhythm of a heartbeat, counterpoint to the soft buzz of Tony’s reactor. He can feel the rise and fall of breathing; the warmth of a living body slowly melting the ice at his core.

One of the hands lifts away and he whines at the loss, before sighing when it simply moves to card fingers through his hair. A soft chuckle vibrates through his anchor.

“Shh, you’re alright, Steve. I’ve got you.”


End file.
